Android (Rant) Android 13 is a rubbish OS.

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6pack

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This is just my insane rambling regarding the Android 13 operating system. I was using Android 8.1 and MIUI before jumping to A13 so keep that in mind.

So, I was searching for a new phone and bought a pixel 6a. Phone came with A13 and I spent a day updating it and installing apps that were not installed since they were Foss apps on fdroid.
So everything is ready and I noticed a few problems with this os right away. This is supposed to be the latest os with lot of security features etc and what not but everything looks like a farce to me. Some of the things or options don't make any sense to me.
Example: location is always on. If I switch it off, I get a message that Google won't be able to find my device if I turn it off and location is required by that find my device app and others. So - Google is saying keep it stays on so they can find your device. But, when the device is locked, anyone can turn the location and internet offn without pin or fingerprint access. Wtf? And there is no option to disable the quick tile drop-down in lockscreen.
This option was present in A8.1. Now not there.

Second rant, scoped storage is horrible. I don't feel like using Android phone after this experience. Why? I have 1DM to download files and torrents. I was downloading a Linux iso and I was not getting more that 5kbps speed after downloading about 65% of the file. I tried resetting app data everything and still no luck. So I uninstalled it and reinstalled the app and it can't see the previous partially downloaded file even after giving it access to the folder it made previously. What a horrible operating system.

Another problem - when you connect the phone to the computer to transfer files, a notification used to pop up in A8.1 asking you what to do. Now nothing. You have to go to settings and hunt down the USB option to tether or allow data transfer. (⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

Same with wifi hotspots. You have to go into settings and turn it on. No quick tile or any shortcut. . Okay, I searched through the tile s and found a hotpot tile and also tiles for the vpn.

VPN - when you connect through VPN I can't find out where to disconnect it. It's not there in notification shade or drop-down. It only shows a key in status bar. No way to quickly connect or disconnect VPN.

The brightness slider doesn't show till you pull down the entire notification shade.

Quick tiles are huge for no good reason. Could have put 8 buttons in ther place the 4 tiles show.

This A13 is a piece of junk horrible OS compared to Android 8.1. Everything is really hard to do. Things that we could do in 2 taps previously now take 2 minutes or more. I'm probably going to get mad typing in other things when I find them.

Edit: found some quick setting tiles for hotpot and vpn.
 
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Correction - stock android 13 is what you didn't like

Because of such small nuances, I avoid phone with stock android for myself. But for most people, I do recommend it because they don't pay such close attention to detail as you or I do. My flatmate bought Pixel 6a as upgrade over OP6, he is happy.

I use Samsung & plan to stick with them for future because of UI.

On my Samsung S20FE 5G, I can't turn on/off internet or location from lockscreen without clearing security, as intended or maybe it was a feature I enabled.

I'm not sure of scoped storage & its affects. Never downloaded torrents on the current phone. Normally downloading even 500-700MB files had no issues.

Hotspot has a tile. Samsung saves my USB preference, so it always connects the storage when I connect it to PC.

Even I have to swipe down notification shade completely to open brightness slider. I'm sure these apply to MIUI & all BBK phones as well.

Stock OS phones like Pixel & Moto, even Nothing might suffer from the issues you listed + more. Oneplus' old oxygen OS actually took care of lot of such small shortcomings of stock OS without making a heavy skin like Samsung, Xiaomi or BBK.

BBK - oppo, vivo, Oneplus, realme, iqoo
 
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I was going to post a similar rant. You are comparing Pixel OS with MIUI though. Android versions don't have much to do with it. MIUI is light years ahead of pixel os. I have written it several times here already how super basic is pixel operating system. I was shell shocked when I first started using pixel based operating system on my phone. It was too much to adjust after coming from the comforts of the MIUI. Pixel OS feels like kitkat compared to other android skins.

About your scoped storage, it's a good feature to be honest as apps can't read data of other apps (like previously truecaller could read whatsapp chat). It's just that not all apps yet fully support it. That's the problem. Ttorrent lite app works fine on A13.
 
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And yet, here I was thinking of putting my Pixel 6a through GrapheneOS and testing the usability for my case.
 
OMEGA44-XT said:
Even I have to swipe down notification shade completely to open brightness slider.
Click to expand...
You don't need to. Screenshot from S20FE5G. Works for other Samsungs as well.
 

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prime said:
You don't need to. Screenshot from S20FE5G. Works for other Samsungs as well.
Click to expand...
Does samsung show daily data usage in notification shade like MIUI? It's super useful and I haven't seen it BBK roms either.
 
lockhrt999 said:
Does samsung show daily data usage in notification shade like MIUI? It's super useful and I haven't seen it BBK roms either.
Click to expand...
I couldn't find that. I don't use much data, so I never needed this info.

Can't we check that in "My Jio" or other operator's apps?
 
prime said:
Can't we check that in "My Jio" or other operator's apps?
Click to expand...
It's never updated in real time. MIUI has it from a long time and it's extremely useful for most of the Indians as we have fixed daily data limits.

Screenshot_1.jpg
 
@lockhrt999 , you're right. Miui is like a polished Android OS. The only drawbacks I saw in it were apps that would close because the skin was too heavy and the stuttering in apps. Even browsing a webpage and scrolling it without any stutter was asking too much. Here the Android stock OS is miles ahead. No stuttering and I've kept like 10 apps in recent and all of them open up from where they were. No reloading.

For network monitoring, use netspeed indicator.
play.google.com

NetSpeed Indicator: Internet S - Apps on Google Play

Shows network speed in the status bar to easily monitor your internet connection
play.google.com play.google.com
 
I use a Pixel 3 with A12 as my secondary phone and a Galaxy Tab S7+ with OneUI 5.0 as my tablet. Samsung's OneUI touches are genuinely much more useful, and it is a good thing that it doesn't change much between major Android versions now as it used to in the past.

Google has been making a lot of ridiculous design choices in the past few years and definitely making it more difficult to get things done. One thing I will give them though is that it is extremely light on the hardware to the extent that the SD845 still feels snappy and the camera holds up well.

MIUI was certainly one of the custom ROM options back in the day along with Cyanogen mod, but honestly it hasn't evolved much over time in terms of features. It is extremely poorly optimised and gets worse with time. It also breaks standard compatibility with Android on a number of things. I simply can't use it though as a daily driver.
 
6pack said:
Example: location is always on. If I switch it off, I get a message that Google won't be able to find my device if I turn it off and location is required by that find my device app and others. So - Google is saying keep it stays on so they can find your device. But, when the device is locked, anyone can turn the location and internet offn without pin or fingerprint access. Wtf? And there is no option to disable the quick tile drop-down in lockscreen.
This option was present in A8.1. Now not there.
Click to expand...
I have Moto Edge 20 (Android 12) and it asks for unlock before it can disable or enable location from the lockscreen.
I'm baffled to hear about this.
 
6pack said:
But, when the device is locked, anyone can turn the location and internet offn without pin or fingerprint access. Wtf? And there is no option to disable the quick tile drop-down in lockscreen.
Click to expand...
This is something that has always bothered me. Why would anyone want to put the phone in airplane mode from the lock screen? It's like a free pass to thieves, there is simply no way to prevent a thief from disabling data/network etc.
6pack said:
Quick tiles are huge for no good reason. Could have put 8 buttons in ther place the 4 tiles show
Click to expand...
Same. Google was like "let's try making them bigger and removing whatever info/buttons there are. That should make it better."

Google has been making similar atrocious choices in other apps. Play store is now practically unusable. Everything takes twice as many taps as it used to two years ago, be it looking at your wallet balance, your wishlist, or checking which all apps have updates. All these were just two taps away earlier.
 
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Mr.J said:
I have Moto Edge 20 (Android 12) and it asks for unlock before it can disable or enable location from the lockscreen.
I'm baffled to hear about this.
Click to expand...
I'm spending more time in settings searching for things according to digital wellbeing. It shows I spent around 30 minutes in settings.
Small things like always on display are not under display. It's somewhere else and it's under the title of show date and time always. Either I'm going to go mad using stock Android or I'm going to format this and put some other custom rom on this. Oh, there's no screenshot tile. We can only take screenshot from apps overview.
 
BTW note that even such small things like pinch-to-zoom gesture or rubber band bounce at end of scroll are patent-restricted... You might remember earlier news about Microsoft suing Android device makers using patents and collecting license fees from them... Maybe Google has not agreed to pay whoever owns the "3-finger swipe for screenshot" gesture.

I noticed that my Pixel has a different "stretchy" effect instead of iphone bounce effect when scrolling ends. Others like Moto etc just have a hard stop no animation effect.

Not sure about the main pinch-to-zoom gesture.. maybe everyone has licensed it from apple/microsoft and paying them to include that gesture because it is so widespread.

All such license agreements and lawsuit settlements are typically signed with NDAs in place so hard to search/confirm.
.

edit:

Seems pinch-to-zoom patent attempts by Nokia , Apple etc was rejected: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140071171A1/en
rhizome.org

Apple's Patent on the Pinch-and-Zoom Falls

Rhizome champions born-digital art and culture through commissions, exhibitions, scholarship, and digital preservation.
rhizome.org rhizome.org
.

Moar sleaze: https://gizmodo.com/10-physical-gestures-that-have-been-patented-1251848412
 
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Mr.J said:
My phone takes screenshot with Power+Volume Down combo. I think almost all Motorola phones do this.
Click to expand...
Google has some "tap on back cover" to run command in settings. I set it to take screenshot. Needs real good taps with a finger or with finger nails.
 
Okay, even more rant incoming. There is no way to see what devices are connected to my 5g hotspot. So no way to view or block any device. Apparently Google says it's for our safety. :rolleyes:
I tried searching they Play Store for any app that will create a good WiFi hotspot but none work properly. There was one but it created only the default hotpot in 5.80GHz band which my other devices can't see.

The phone loses battery like a dam with holes in it. I put accubattery and apparently the Google app consumed 4% per hour out of total 8%/ hr. I disabled it and other apps I didn't have any use for and the phone still lost around 4% battery per hour. Turns out even after disabling, the Google app still consumed 2%/hr. :mad: Horrible app.

Same with the display. Even with AOD off it is the biggest battery hog. Maybe it doesn't turn off completely even though it's an OLED screen. Horrible phone imo. Have to charge this 2 times a day.
 
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